Groups and Groupings in the UN The Group of 77 is trying to adapt to economic and social field of the Second new realities as well as showing concern and Third Committees – prominent rep- over long-standing problems of the de- resentatives of individual groups still veloping countries. seem to act along bloc lines (→ Com- Sally Morphet mittees, System of). 2. Group Diversity Lit.: The Group of 77: Ministerial Statement The most institutionalized group forma- – Thirtieth Annual meeting of Ministers for tion is the system of regional groups (→ Foreign Affairs of the Group of 77, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 22 Sep- Regional Groups in the UN), currently tember 2006, www.g77.org/ammfa/30/ con- five in number. The regional groups in- clusion.html; Lee, D.: South Africa in the clude all 192 member states (as of June World Trade Organisation, in: Lee, D./Tay- 2008), with the exception of Kiribati lor, I./Williams, P.D. (eds.): The New Multi- (and, to a certain extent, Israel and the lateralism in South African Diplomacy (Stu- USA). Also of significance for UN prac- dies in Diplomacy and International Rela- tice are regional sub-groups such as the tions), Houndmills/Basingstoke 2006, 51-77; Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Taylor, I./Smith, K.: The United Nations Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (Global Institutions Series), the Arab Group, the Rio Group, the Cen- London/New York 2007. tral American Group, the Nordic States and the five African sub-groups of East- Internet: Homepage of the Group of 77: www.g77.org; major declarations and pro- ern, Western, Central, Southern and grammes of action of the Group of 77: Northern Africa. Almost all negotiations www.g77.org/doc/docs.html. are conducted among major political groupings such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) (→ Non-Aligned Groups and Groupings in the UN Movement and the UN), the Group of 77 (G77) (→ Group of 77 and the UN), 1. General and now also the JCC, the Joint Coordi- The day-to-day business of the United nation Committee of these two group- Nations is very much influenced by ings, on which China also sits. There are groups of states, which have combined also numerous “Groups of Friends”, to formulate group interests, and to at- whose work concentrates on a particular tempt to impose their positions in the topic. A UN office-holder is frequently organizations and programmes. The → linked to the group (“Friends of the Charter of the UN does not provide for President for ...”, “Friends of the Secre- such groups. However, the fact that the tary-General on ...”). Also significant UN now encompasses some 192 states are the ad-hoc groups created to achieve makes it necessary for states to form in- specific negotiating objectives. These terest groups. Without informal discus- are entirely informal, but are instrumen- sions, it would be nearly impossible to tal in the negotiating process (Peterson keep on top of negotiations and proce- 1989). dural matters (Peterson 1989). This Not to be confused with the above practical reason for the existence of nu- groupings are political associations and merous groups within the → UN system regional alliances such as ASEAN, the was long augmented by a bipolar divi- Organization of the Islamic Conference sion into blocs defined by the Cold War, (OIC), the Arab League and the Euro- and by the prosperity gap between the pean Union (EU). The European Union developed North and the less developed in particular seeks to present joint posi- South (von Schorlemer 1995) (→ tions wherever possible as part of its North-South-Relations and the UN). Common Foreign and Security Policy Today the Eastern and Western blocs CFSP (→ European Union, Common are of diminishing significance (Kim/ Foreign and Security Policy at the UN). Russett 1996), even if – especially in the It has now become a significant UN 212 Groups and Groupings in the UN player. A number of states, especially to resolve regional conflicts under dis- from Western and Eastern Europe, now cussion by the Security Council, it has associate themselves with the joint long been the practice to form so-called statements of the EU states. Others use “Groups of Friends of the Secretary- these statements as a guide for formu- General”, in which those states inter- lating their own, often identical posi- ested in or necessary for the resolving of tions. the conflict (should) participate (cf. 3. Major Political Groupings Prantl 2006, 70-86). Since the end of the Cold War, the formation of Friends The major political groupings include and other groups has “exploded” (Whit- the Group of 77 with its 130 members. field 2004), amongst them: Friends of / China is associated with this group. The Contact Group on Angola, Burundi, Non-Aligned Movement can boast 118 Central African Republic, DRC, UN members (and 15 observers) as of June Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, the 2008. While the Group of 77 concen- Great Lakes Region, Guinea-Bissau, Li- trates on economic and social issues, the beria, Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Le- Non-Aligned Movement looks at all one, Somalia, Sudan, Western Sahara matters, predominantly political ones. → (in Africa), Colombia, El Salvador, Within the Security Council the non- Guatemala, Haiti, Venezuela (all in the aligned members form a “caucus”. A Americas), Afghanistan, Cambodia, joint coordination committee (JCC), on East Timor, Myanmar (in Asia), Cyprus, which China also sits, takes decisions Kosovo, Former Yugoslavia, Georgia, on common positions shared by the two Tajikistan (in Europe/the Former groups. Both movements recruit mem- USSR), Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon (in the bers from the ranks of the developing Middle East). 14 of these groups do still countries, including states such as Sin- operate, not including institutional advi- gapore, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay. Some sory groups (as of December 2006). European states (such as Sweden) have Groups of Friends meet intensively more contact with non-aligned states during the conflict in question and in- than others. clude the country in which the conflict 4. Regional Groups and Sub-Groups is located. Draft resolutions (→ Resolu- The → regional groups comprise 53 Af- tion, Declaration, Decision) are fre- rican states (GAFS), 53 Asian states quently drawn up by such groups. (GASS), 33 Latin American/Caribbean Whether a state may join a group of states (GRULAC), 21 Eastern European friends is up to the responsible coordi- states (EES) and 28 Western European nator with the consent of the group and Other states (WEOG) and primarily members. An example of a Group of serve to prepare election decisions to Friends which changed its composition important UN bodies. Regional sub- is the Group of Friends for Afghanistan, groups act as consultation groups and or the original and the New Group of are of their nature smaller: the Carib- Friends for Georgia. Groups of Friends bean Community (CARICOM) has 15 are not exclusive in nature. Key to suc- members, the Alliance of Small Island cess of a Group of Friends is composi- States (AOSIS) has 43 (including 4 ob- tion (responsible leadership, small size, servers), the Arab Group 21, the Rio mixture of regional and influential Group 12 (Latin American states plus states). one representative each from Central 6. Ad Hoc Groups America and the Caribbean), the Central Ad hoc groups – also known as “infor- American Group including Belize has 6, mal” or “temporary” groups – come into and the Nordic States 5. their own at major multilateral confer- 5. “Groups of Friends” ences. The negotiations in the frame- → work of the Third UN Conference on In order to help the Secretariat, and → in particular the → Secretary-General, the Law of the Sea ( Law of the Sea) 213